HOW DO I KNOW I AM A CHILD OF GOD?
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone asked me: “How do I know that I am saved?”
In other words, that person wanted to know, how he/she would know if he/she was truly a child of God.
I originally wanted to divide this writing into two sections, but because when something is first separated it may not come to everyone in its totality, I therefore decided against splitting it. I do believe and trust that once you have read this writing, you certainly, through self-examination shall know if you are truly a saved Christian or whether you are just a Christian by name because then in reality at this stage you are still truly lost.
Here is how I experience it in my own life and now live accordingly:
For me everything begins and ends with Jesus Christ.
In His holy Word it is written:
REV 1:7 Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”
So shall it be! Amen
REV 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." (Jesus Christ)
Also:
JOH 14:5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
JOH 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me
Therefore, the very first thing that you should know with absolute certainty in your heart is that JESUS is for you exactly what His holy Word says He is, and that you realize that there is no one, but absolutely no other way to be saved, but by accepting Him as your Lord and Saviour.
ACTS 4:12 ”Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
How do you do this?
You realize that in your life as you are living it now, from a human viewpoint whether it is a good life or if it is not a good life – there is just one end because you are living without Jesus – and therefore it is hell.
In other words: You realize that at this moment you are without Jesus and that because of this – you are lost. Now you make a turnaround in your life. Saying it another way; you repent and ask Jesus to come into your heart – you surrender your life to Him.
You turn your back on how you lived your life before, and from now on Jesus is your life and not just a part, but in all that you decide Jesus is now first. In other words, you spiritually stretch your hands out and you embrace the sacrifice that was paid for you at Golgotha, and you make it yours and you attempt now in everything you do to be a true disciple of Jesus.
1COR 5:7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
1COR 5:8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Then you do the following: You let yourself be baptized in public to make this wonderful decision of yours a worldwide declaration. I say worldwide because you do this through baptism in public not just known to people, but you also announce/make it known, to the spiritual realm.
You can say you make it a universal declaration.
Why do we do this in public for everyone to see and to have knowledge of it?
For me the answer is simple: All the people which Jesus called to Him in His walk here on earth – He called them to Him in public and they had to make the decision in public whether to follow Him or not.
So through your baptism you declare in public to all the people, the spirits and the powers: “In this representation of the funeral of my previous self and the rebirth of my new self, I testify:
I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins.
I believe he was buried.
I believe he rose from the dead.
I have accepted this Jesus, God who became man, as my Lord and Saviour. The old me is dead. I am now a new child of God, washed by His blood, and a disciple of Jesus.”
I have mentioned that not only have you testified to the people but also before the spirits and the powers about this: That you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and that you are now His disciple. By your baptism you are making it not just publicly, but universally known.
LUK 15:7 “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
When I am attending a baptismal service and I hear the person being submerged and I hear the water as the person re-emerges, then one of my great thoughts in my heart is; of the reverberating jubilant cry which goes through the spiritual universe when the person, or then new being, climbs from the baptismal bath:
2COR 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
I have also mentioned to you that with your baptism you testify that the old person you were, now is dead:
ROM 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If you do not want to be baptised in this way because you are supposedly too shy or something like that, according to my understanding of the Word you are not where you should be in your spiritual life in order that you may be baptised, and you must take note of what our Lord says:
MARK 8:38 “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
According to Jesus’s Gospel, a true conversion, to put it that way, is an unashamed conversion:
ROM 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes:, …”
Everything that I have shared with you up to this point can according to my opinion be summarised by the following words from the Word:
ACTS 2:37-39
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
In what I am about to say, I am not saying that people who were baptised as babies are on their way to hell. You are not going to hell because you have not been baptised, or because you have been baptised incorrectly. You are going to hell if you arrive at Heaven’s Gate without Jesus. In other words, if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour before you depart this world.
I want to identify the enormous danger, if you preach which you truly cannot find in the Word. I use the example of baptism of babies because I personally have been through it and have at least a good knowledge of this through my life and have myself as an example thereof.
So unfortunately I must mention to you that there are many, many false conversions and one of the biggest reasons in my opinion for false conversions is the baptism of children. I have met people throughout my life which have only once attended a church service and that was when they were baptised as a baby and, they may attend one more church service, and that will be their funeral and anyway that will only be their body that’s there.
I have also met people in my life that have only been twice in a church. The first time was when they were baptised as babies and the second time was when they were married, and unless they have not truly converted to our Lord, the last time for them to be in church is most probably going to be their funeral, and then it will only be their body which will be there, and yet all these people boast: “I am a child of the covenant.”
To get back to myself –
I also, to a great part, reasoned like these people.
Just – I did a few more things which many of them didn’t even do and it made my fallacy greater than theirs – that is if one error can be bigger than the other.
I was also baptised as a baby.
I also completed the catechism classes.
I was also confirmed – Even though I was instructed to follow that path.
So, I was at least several times in a church service. A few years later I was also in a church to get married because my soon to be in-laws wanted it and while I stood there I could not wait for the minister to finish with his prescribed service requirements so that I could get out of there. That was the last time I was in a church for many years, until the day my brother shared the true Gospel of Jesus Christ with me and not a doctrine.
They say that 87% of the population in South Africa are Christians. In my book a Christian, disciple/follower of Jesus is someone who for the love of Jesus to the best of his/her ability, follows Him as He should be followed, and if he/she does not get it right, will just work harder to try to get it right.
PHIL 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
So tell me truthfully, can you say from your heart that 87% of the people in South Africa are disciples of Jesus?
A very large amount of people in South Africa and of course throughout the world, are lost – because of, to put it that way, a worthless or false (no value) gospel was presented or still being presented to them – they are peacefully unaware that they are on the road to hell !
A very good example of a superficial gospel is the “prosperity” gospel. I am not saying that you will now, if you have done what I have mentioned above, and what is written and summarised for us in ACTS 2:37-39, suddenly will live a holy life, but I assure you that if you, and only you, truly have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and not if someone else did it for you on your behalf through some ceremony, you will no longer love and live that sinful way which you have lived – it will bother you and systematically you will remove and get rid of those things in your life.
There will always be false conversions amongst the children of our Lord because there will always be people that proclaim one or other easy, shallow and/or worthless gospel to make it easy for people to be followers of their phony sort of gospel. That is why Jesus also said:
MAT 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
So, they will always be there, but you and I do not have to be one of them.
Now I am of course not saying that you are on the road to hell because as an example you were baptised as a baby. But I am certainly saying to you that you should realise that you are not on the road to Heaven because of something that your parents or someone else has done for you, or with you – or if you are very religious or because you’re leading a good life. It is just not the truth. A true repentance has this lovely great outstanding characteristic within the repentant person’s heart and life – A change starts happening in his/her life.
Everything in your life which is not acceptable to our Lord’s Holy Spirit, you systematically remove. I say systematically, because for the majority of us it is not, to put it that way, a Damascus experience, as it was for my great hero Paul.
I, for example, just to mention two things in my life which immediately became a huge problem for me after I surrendered myself to Jesus was: I could not immediately give up smoking, but it continually bothered me until I eventually could quit; and I needed to work much longer and harder on my temper.
This must be the case with everything in your life which is not acceptable to our Lord’s Holy Spirit.
How do you know what is not acceptable to our Lord?
Study the Word regularly, as in daily.
Pray/talk with our Lord and listen to His voice in your heart. Surround yourself with people who carry the fruits of the Holy Spirit and also strive in your life to attain that attitude.
Jesus says:
MAT 7:15-21
15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. True and False Disciples
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
What are the fruits that Jesus talks about, which we must possess to be able to do the Will of our Lord?
GAL 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
There are many people that only through talk and not in truth accepted Jesus.
If you have truly accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, then His Spirit is living within you and then the things that are not acceptable to His Spirit, will also be unacceptable to you and systematically you will remove them and that which you have been unable to remove, shall remain a great problem to you until you have also removed it.
You will also have a great desire that all the fruits of the Spirit will be visible and active in your life and you will certainly not want to be a passive Christian.
In closing. the Word says:
JOH 1:12 “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—”
If you have truly accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you are His child, in other words, you are part of the family of Jesus Christ. You are actually much closer than that, you are part of God’s family, because you are His child and if you have read this up to here, you will know if you are truly a child of God and if you are not, and you will now clearly know what to do to also become a part of the wonderful family of God.
Greetings,
Sakkie